Motivation Excellence

Category: Industry Expertise

  • All Signs Point to Growing Incentives & Meetings Business in 2025; You Can Still Reap the Benefits at Your Company

    All Signs Point to Growing Incentives & Meetings Business in 2025; You Can Still Reap the Benefits at Your Company

    Recent industry forecasts and surveys indicate corporate meetings, events and incentives will grow in 2025. According to the Incentive Travel Index 37% of respondents say 2025 levels will surpass 2024; 54% expect the spend-per-person to increase too. 

    At Motivation Excellence, we continue to see interest in planning something in 2025, even though it’s less than a month away. Meetings, retreats and spurt incentive programs are all easy ways to inject some energy into the calendar year without necessarily needing a long planning period. Flexibility in destinations and venues helps keep options open well into the year. 

    “Fitch Ratings predicts corporate revenue will continue to grow at a low- to mid-single digit rate in 2025. Using a well-thought-out event or meeting or launching a short-term incentive program could increase that growth. 

    “We’ve been helping our clients shoot for larger percentage growth next year through our solutions that generate excitement and motivate people to want to exceed their sales goals,” says Joe Reise, Director, Travel Purchasing, Planning and Supplier Relations. 

    The Benefits of Launching a Short-Term Incentive in 2025

    If you’ve never invested in running a B2B or sales team incentive, planning a spurt program is a great way to get the feel for one and see instant results. Short-term incentives can run from a month to a quarter or two, depending on your sales cycle and goals. They can be valuable for:

    • Specific products in your inventory
    • Launching a new product
    • Seasonal products or services
    • Promoting steps-to-the-sale initiatives
    • Gaining market share

    “Short-term incentive programs are especially beneficial when a company wants to focus on generating excitement within its sales ranks; which in turn generates a boost of incremental sales,” says Rhonda Brewer, VP, Sales. 

    Pairing the incentive rules with a motivational reward is key to producing results. Goals need to be attainable, yet a stretch to reach. Rewards need to be aspirational but within your budget. This is an area in which our experts at Motivation Excellence excel. Many incentive programs pay for themselves and then some, if set up correctly from the start.  

    Rewards can run from award points to use on nearly anything to individual or group travel experiences to merchandise packages that upgrade a favorite hobby or room in a house. We offer such a huge selection of reward options that everyone will find something they can’t wait to earn! 

    Go Ahead and Plan that 2025 Meeting; We’re Here to Help

    Another option to infuse some energy into 2025 is to look at hosting a meeting or event that energizes the key stakeholders responsible for your company’s success. From an executive retreat for 12 to a global sales meeting for hundreds, we can help you put it on the calendar sooner than you might expect. We recently planned an international sales meeting for more than 500 people, including breakout training sessions, off-site social gatherings and expert speakers, in just four months. 

    “We are experts with years of experience and a network of amazing global partners. When we work with a client, we become an extension of their team. We can take on as much as they need from us,” says Brewer. 

    “Flexibility is key in short turn around events, but that doesn’t have to mean you’re settling for anything. My team will source several great options that fit parameters like location, budget, amenities and space considerations, so our clients have really good choices,” Reise adds. 

    Let’s Connect

    Motivation Excellence is happy to provide clients with a wide range of services, including program enrollment, event registration, air ticketing, full event planning, engagement support and performance tracking for all of our incentives, meetings and events solutions.  We’re excited to celebrate 40 years in the industry in 2025. Nothing would be better than giving your company a reason to celebrate next year too!

  • 3 Key Things About Sales Incentives to Keep in Mind

    3 Key Things About Sales Incentives to Keep in Mind

    We are all about sales incentives here at Motivation Excellence. Sales incentive programs are powerful tools designed to motivate and reward sales teams for reaching goals that help your bottom line. While the premise of an incentive program might seem simple, designing a successful one involves more than a goal and a reward. 

    We are here to help your organization motivate your sales team, and even distributor partners. Don’t hesitate to contact us to learn more about our customized sales incentives. In the meantime, here are three key things to keep in mind:

    1. The Details Matter

    Incentives are very flexible. We build them to fit your audience and goals. We start from scratch with each client and guide you through several steps to find the best way to minimize your risk and maximize your results. We start with your objectives, look at your obstacles and then recommend the best way to motivate your sales team while bringing you the most robust ROI. Here are some other details you don’t want to overlook:

    • Audience – Determining who you want to motivate and what you want them to do to earn the reward is an important step in creating a successful sales incentive program. You can have more than one set of participants too.
    • Rules  – We shine at doing a deep dive into your available data, along with industry trends, to cultivate a set of rules that protects you financially AND allows for realistic growth among your participants.
    • Measurement – Being able to measure progress through analytics is a great way to keep your sales team motivated. It also helps you make adjustments in real time to capture the best results.
    • Rewards – If they’re not motivating, you’ve lost before you started. Branded swag, lifestyle upgrade packages, individual experiences and group travel with other top performers are a few popular rewards you can use in a sales incentive program. They also work well with channel teams. 

    2. Proper Implementation Is Critical to Success

    How you launch a sales incentive can lead to an excited boost or a disappointed fizzle. Subsequently how you continue to communicate with your sales team can help ramp up or stall the success of the program. Here are a few things we like to implement in our incentive programs:

    • Make sure your management is on board and ready to hype the program.
    • Create a consistent engagement plan that keeps your sales team members’ attention.
    • Display an easy-to-read progress-to-goal gauge for everyone in the incentive and update it at a regular cadence.
    • Keep the significant other in the loop with targeted communications so they can be a cheerleader outside work. 

    3. Sales Incentive Programs Can Improve Overall Company Outlook

    Rounding out the list of key things to know about sales incentives is why they are worthwhile. Incentives targeted at the people who do the most to increase your profitability, positively affect your bottom line, which can boost morale, even for those not directly part of the incentive. A successful sales incentive can also:

    • Provide friendly competition among your sales team, which can naturally increase sales.
    • Help you retain talent as part of your total compensation package. 
    • Keep your sales team engaged with their own goals, but also the overall goals of the company.
    • Build stronger relationships between company leaders and individual sales team members. 

    Incentivizing your sales team can make an enormous difference in revenue and growth. We encourage you to learn more about all of our incentive and loyalty offerings by visiting our Motivation Excellence website.

    We are industry leaders who specialize in customized solutions for your B2B channel and internal sales team incentives. When your team is engaged, motivated and eager, great things happen. Our programs are designed specifically for that purpose. Let’s get started today!

  • How to Measure the Effectiveness of Your Channel Incentive Programs

    How to Measure the Effectiveness of Your Channel Incentive Programs

    Effectively growing sales revenues and market share is an ongoing challenge in today’s highly competitive marketplace. Moreover, encouraging channel partners and dealer reps to do their best by you takes strategy. Channel incentive programs are designed to help your business stand out among your competitors and can actually pay for themselves through incremental sales growth. Another great benefit of a well-run channel incentive program is the increased loyalty they foster, which can continue to reap rewards long into the future. 

    How do we measure the effectiveness of a channel focused incentive? There are a variety of metrics from hard sales numbers to program website log ins. It’s important to decide how you’ll know if a channel incentive is a success and keep track of those metrics regularly throughout the life of the program. Here are a few suggested metrics to consider:

    1. Sales Performance 

    Although sales performance is not the only factor to consider, it is a good starting place. You can break down sales data rather minutely if that helps you make decisions on who and what to focus on. You can look at:

    • Revenue by distributor, geography, and products/categories
    • Overall and partner-specific sales growth
    • Market share changes over a specified amount of time

    Looking at sales performance metrics provides a broad overview of how your organization and its partners are doing on the revenue front. By looking at partner-specific sales growth, you can zero-in on the performance of individual channel partners. Between the two, you’ll glean important information about where you are now and where you want to be in short- and long-term periods.

    2. Partner Engagement

    Successful channel incentive programs engage partners. So, it is a smart idea to come up with some partner engagement metrics you can track. At the top of the list is participation rate. What percentage of your invited distribution partners enroll? Of those, who is consistently engaging with your company through increased purchases, and who could be coaxed to perform better with some TLC?

    Other partner engagement metrics include:

    • Interaction with sales team or customer service reps 
    • Incentive website log in frequency
    • Email open rates with special focus on clickthrough percentages
    • Amount of new sales tied to the focus of your incentive

    If a channel incentive program is both attractive and meaningful to partners, they will reflect their interest with the amount of time and frequency they interact with the program. 

    3. New Opportunities and ROI

    Effective channel incentive programs can open the door to more opportunities via stronger relationships and trust with your company. A well-designed channel incentive can more than pay for itself via incremental sales in the present, but the opportunity to be a long-term partner is where the continued ROI shines through. A metric here could be longevity of a client in addition to quantity of sales. We’ve seen long-running incentive programs foster participants who outperform industry trends even in flat and down markets. 

    Channel incentive programs can be invaluable in the drive to increase sales and grow an organization. But like all other business tools, program effectiveness must be continually measured so you can make adjustments in real time to capitalize on unexpected results, good or bad. Program design and rule structures are proven ways to get the best return and least risk for your program. We’re here to help you get started today!

  • Using the Power of Spurt Programs to Motivate Sales

    Using the Power of Spurt Programs to Motivate Sales

    Effective engagement with sales teams or customers is a long-term enterprise. Yet there are plenty of short-term goals to reach along the way. Consider sales cycles. Engaging with and motivating a sales team during a cycle can mean good things for sales reps and great things for your bottom line. Enter the spurt program.

    By their nature, spurt or spiff programs are short term events designed to accelerate brand awareness or product sales. A spurt program can run for an entire quarter. It could run for just 2-4 weeks.

    Program Purpose and Structure

    Turning to spurt programs for sales team/customer engagement is based on the principle of injecting a quick burst of urgency and excitement into a sales cycle. They are great at motivating sales members to reach short term goals by offering a meaningful reward. A spurt program can:

    • Increase sales team efforts
    • Drive focus to one product area
    • Motivate competition
    • Inject some fresh incentives into an ongoing rewards program

    A good spurt program has a deadline that incentivizes sales team members to go all out until the program ends. In addition, spurt programs should have clear and measurable objectives.

    The Right Rewards Make a Difference

    One of the keys to successful spurt programs is choosing the right rewards. Within a sales cycle, you are looking to reward participants with things that actually interest them. The rewards themselves should be motivators above and beyond reaching sales goals. If you can personalize rewards, all the better.

    Individual travel experiences tend to be motivational for sales team members. The opportunity to get away on a personalized adventure with a loved one adds excitement and purpose. Another option is a points program. At Motivation Excellence, top performers can take advantage of using their points nearly any way they want through our Concierge Shopping Service. 

    Check Out MaxRewardsYourWay

    We believe so much in spurt programs that we’ve designed our MaxRewardsYourWay platform to enhance them. We invite you to learn more about it by checking out the dedicated page we’ve put together on our website.

    MaxRewardsYourWay allows companies to create customized reward packages based on goals, budget and item preferences. Rewards can include everything from travel to lifestyle upgrades (think Napa getaways, new fitness accessories or game room tech). Marketing these reward packages is easy. And, it’s a perfect reward option for companies who want low overhead and excellent return on investment. 

    Lastly, we offer the flexibility to change elements in the package. If one of your participants earns the Kitchen Gadget Upgrade Package but already has the coffee maker included in it, that person can contact our Concierge Shopping Service to swap it for something else.

    Different Ways to Run Spurt Programs

    Spurt programs are highly flexible and don’t need a lot of prep time to get them launched. There are multiple ways to set up and run a program. Depending on your goals, a short-term incentive program can reward for total volume of sales, quantity of product shipped or the best increase over the last sales cycle. You can reward only a few people or spread out the opportunities so more people are motivated to participate. Rewards can increase as sales levels do. Sell 10 x-ray machines and earn package A. Sell 15 and earn package B, and so on. They can also be a sweepstakes format. It all depends on what you’re trying to achieve. 

    Regardless of how spurt programs are structured, they represent a fun and exciting way to inject motivation into a sales team and boost your bottom line!

  • Recognizing Stellar Teamwork at Work; Our Internal Program at Motivation Excellence

    Recognizing Stellar Teamwork at Work; Our Internal Program at Motivation Excellence

    At Motivation Excellence our core values are Respect, Integrity, Trust and Exceeding Expectations, or RITE2. As a leader in the incentive industry, we like to live what we recommend to others. Showing the people who matter most to your business that they matter to you is critical to increased engagement, loyalty and longevity, whether you’re talking about employees or partners outside your business. When people are more engaged with your company, they work harder to help you reach your goals.

    We have an internal recognition program based on RITE2 that allows colleagues to recognize each other for exemplifying one of our core values. Everyone gets an award point balance they can use each month to reward one or more teammates. For really special recognition, they can ask a manager for a bigger award point reward. Enter Debbie and Josee.

    Debbie, a 27-year veteran of our office, had a serious medical condition that required her to take several months off. Debbie is one of our jill-of-all-trades team members. Among many other things, she has a hand in quoting our creative services, purchasing supplies, working with print vendors and organizing mailings out of our on-site warehouse. She’s one of those people who you don’t realize all she does until she’s not there. 

    When Debbie left, Josee, our travel mailing coordinator, didn’t ask what she could do to help fill the void. She just did it. Knowing the ins and outs of the warehouse and how mailings work already, Josee stepped up to make sure all mailings, including those outside the travel department, stayed on schedule, had the proper packaging and personally assembled and shipped every one to an exacting standard. She coordinated with both internal teams and external vendors to keep the flow of work right on schedule. And then, Debbie says, she did even more. 

    “When time was available Josee again took it upon herself to give the warehouse a good cleaning. All the materials in stock have been organized and labeled for easy access in the future. She donated items we no longer were using so we could help others in the community,” wrote Debbie in her Exceeding Expectations award nomination. 

    In response, company leadership recently lifted up Josee as an example to celebrate our Exceeding Expectations core value. For Josee, she was surprised, but honored.

    “She’s my friend. I’m just glad she’s healthy again. I didn’t want her to worry about anything at work. She absolutely would’ve done that for me. We all do that here. We show up to get the work done,” said Josee.

    Josee plans to use her reward to make an upcoming mother-son adventure to Italy even more special. Sharing the appreciation with family makes it that much more meaningful and memorable!

  • How to Personalize Group Travel Programs with Motivation Excellence

    How to Personalize Group Travel Programs with Motivation Excellence

    Personalization and group travel may seem like they don’t mesh. We are happy to say they can! There are numerous ways to personalize group travel programs, whether you are putting together an incentive travel program for employees or channel partners.

    Group travel is something we specialize in at Motivation Excellence. Our planners incorporate plenty of personalized options to make our travel programs feel one-of-a-kind the people earning them. Here are a few ways we do just that:

    1. Offer a Variety of Activities

    Group travel doesn’t have to mean the exact same activities for every participant. Group travel program itineraries can be quite flexible, including a variety of choices. By offering many activities and the ability to choose, you give participants an opportunity to help craft an adventure they will genuinely appreciate. 

    We recommend putting together a list of activities with broad appeal. The idea is to have something for everyone. You might offer fitness activities along with golf, an adventure experience, spa sessions, and local tours. And don’t underestimate “at leisure” time. It’s consistently a winner with our participants. 

    2. Make Dining More Intimate

    It has been our experience that group travel participants appreciate a more intimate dining experience, so they have an opportunity to spend quality time with executives or preferred suppliers.

    Vendor-sponsored dinners allow participants to have access to product managers, and vice versa. If you’re hosting a channel partner incentive travel experience, connecting your distributors with favorite suppliers creates great relationships, with you right in the middle. If you’re running an internal sales incentive, giving top performers time to meet with the C-suite is very motivating. 

    3. Use the Motivation Excellence Inspire Platform

    We’ve saved the best tip for last: use the Motivation Excellence Inspire technology for group travel. Inspire is a truly unique platform that puts personalized itineraries right in your travelers’ hands. Group dinners, individual activity selections, flights and more are easy to access via a phone or computer. 

    Inspire is completely customizable to match your company’s colors, logo and style. From program registration to plane seat preference to FAQs about your destination, Inspire helps engage your participants before, during and after your group travel event. 

    Some Things to Keep in Mind

    Motivation Excellence takes incentive group travel to new levels. We use only highly-rated hotel properties and provide only the best staff to ensure flawless execution on-site. 

    Notice, we don’t call these “trips.” Anyone can take a trip. We provide experiences that people cannot plan on their own; experiences that are truly memorable and motivating.

    Group travel doesn’t have to be static. It does not need to be a one-size-fits-all experience. Whether you are putting together a program for employees, channel partners or favorite vendors, we can help you personalize the program so that every participant feels like the experience was made just for them!

  • Looking Ahead with Confidence & Optimism as We Celebrate an Anniversary

    Looking Ahead with Confidence & Optimism as We Celebrate an Anniversary

    There’s nothing like an anniversary that gets you to look back and forward at the same time. We celebrate 39 years in the incentive industry in September. David Jobes was part of that history for 32 years, until he passed away in July. Our company will remain owned by the Jobes family. In a recent company-wide meeting they expressed their commitment to the company, calling the team a second family, and saying the company is stronger than ever as two members of the leadership team step up to run the business.

    Bob Graham and Michelle Ebner, both Vice Presidents on the leadership team, are now co-CEOs and co-Presidents. Graham has a long history in the incentive industry and at Motivation Excellence, most recently serving as VP, Client Solutions and Technology. He will focus on operations and sales, while Ebner, formally VP, Finance, will concentrate on corporate finance and human resources.

    “The foundations of Motivation Excellence, which include our culture and exceeding our clients’ expectations, are solid. Michelle and I are focusing attention on running things even more efficiently so we can serve our clients at the highest standard and maximize the company’s growth potential. David had a strategic vision for the company, and we plan to keep that going,” said Graham.

    The existing leadership team will remain intact and includes longtime veterans of the industry. Brad Hecht is the Sr. VP of Travel & Chief Travel Strategist, Rhonda Brewer is VP, Sales and Kelli Robb is VP, Travel Operations. All three are deeply involved with our group travel and award point program clients.

    “We will honor David’s legacy by continuing our high level of service. He built an amazing culture with our clients and our internal teams, and it’s a priority to keep that alive,” remarked Ebner.

    It’s heartwarming to keep Motivation Excellence within the Jobes family, and especially wonderful to have people from our work family take the reins going forward. We will continue to Inspire Extraordinary Performance through our motivating B2B and employee incentive programs and aspirational rewards solutions.

  • In Rewards and Recognition, Leadership Enthusiasm Is Critical

    In Rewards and Recognition, Leadership Enthusiasm Is Critical

    Both personalized rewards and travel incentives can improve engagement, boost morale, and contribute to greater productivity. But if an organization expects its incentivization efforts to pay off in the long run, there is a critical ingredient that cannot be ignored: leadership enthusiasm. Leadership needs to do more than endorse programs on paper. They need to be personally involved.

    A March 2024 post by Forbes Council’s Member David Grossman drives home this point really well. We will borrow from Grossman’s post while adding our own thoughts. When all is said and done, we hope you walk away with a better understanding of how leadership impacts both the tangible and intangible benefits of personalized rewards and employee recognition.

    Leadership Was Into It

    Grossman began his post by discussing a recent experience that had made a huge impression on him. As he put it, he “had the opportunity to observe an exemplary employee recognition program in action.” The program was designed to award employees who demonstrated the company’s values in remarkable ways.

    That alone says something. The employer went beyond offering personalized rewards and recognition just to increase engagement or boost productivity. They actually want their employees to live out company values as they do what they do. They want company culture to be more than words on paper. They want it to define how employees do what they do.

    At any rate, Grossman observed that company leadership was really into the recognition part of the program. During the official recognition ceremony, leadership described how award winners exemplified company values. They described how the award winners went above and beyond to meet the needs of both clients and colleagues.

    The Excitement Was Palpable

    According to Grossman, the excitement in the room was palpable. There was an energy not seen in most employee recognition events. Most importantly, all the employees were able to see first-hand that company leadership actually believed in what they were doing. They saw that their leaders were genuinely enthusiastic about recognizing employees for their exemplary work.

    It’s Not Always That Way

    Unfortunately, what Grossman observed is not the standard for every company. In fact, he cited statistics from a Gallup poll showing just the opposite. According to the poll:

    • 40% of American employees receive recognition a few times per year or less.
    • Just 23% reported that their employers had recognition programs in place.

    Things do not have to be this way. In fact, they should not. The same Gallup poll reveals that employees who are regularly recognized for doing well are four times more likely to be engaged at work. They are also 73% less likely to report burnout.

    More Than Just a Human Resource

    Perhaps a good way to summarize everything Grossman wrote in his post is to say that American workers want to be treated like they are more than just human resources. They want to be treated as partners with ideas to contribute, visions for the company, and the ability to serve clients without being tethered.

    Personalized rewards and recognition programs cannot meet every employee engagement need in the modern workforce. But they can go a long way toward demonstrating to employees that they are human beings with value rather than just easily replaced resources.

    Just remember this one thing: the success of any rewards or recognition program is intrinsically tied to leadership enthusiasm. Leadership needs to buy-in, both on paper and through actively participating in recognizing hard working employees. The more enthusiasm leadership displays, the more enthusiasm they will encourage in their employees. Ultimately, that’s what makes all this work.

  • How Engaging Family Members Can Boost Your Sales Incentive Programs

    How Engaging Family Members Can Boost Your Sales Incentive Programs

    The companies we work with sincerely want engaged channel partners. It is one of the reasons they offer incentive programs for channel partners. But did you know that incentivizing channel partners doesn’t begin and end in the workplace? It also extends to family members.

    One of the rarely talked about secrets of using incentive programs to boost channel partner engagement is getting family members involved. There are numerous ways to engage with family members. At the top of the list is to include them in incentive program communications. That way, they can get excited about the incentives as well. They can become cheerleaders at home.

    Incentivize the Entire Family

    Along the many incentive and reward programs we offer are personal rewards designed for individual channel partners. We can help your company design a package that uniquely fits your workforce. Personal reward options include things like:

    • Dining experiences.
    • Individual travel experiences.
    • Tickets to concerts and sporting events.
    • Music and book subscriptions.

    Many of our reward options don’t just benefit the single channel partner. They benefit the entire family. One channel partner might take a spouse to the fanciest restaurant they have ever been to. Another might share tickets to the year’s hottest concert with every member of the family. It is not just the channel partner who winds up being incentivized; the entire family is incentivized.

    At home, family members can cheer on the channel partner, encouraging them to be the best possible salesperson. And when the salesperson succeeds, the whole family gets rewarded. Talk about building excitement at home. Nothing else compares.

    Involving Families in Incentive Engagement Pays Off in Multiple Ways

    Involving families in channel partner engagement has a direct impact by encouraging family members to support their loved ones as they help them to be the best they can be. But there are indirect ways through which family member incentivization pays off. Let us look at a few:

    • Financial Security – Modern families long for a sense of financial security. That being the case, some are unwilling to spend money on life’s little extras because they don’t want to jeopardize the budget. Providing those little extras through a channel partner incentive program enables families to enjoy some nice things while still being confident about their finances.
    • Work-Life Balance – Work-life balance is an ongoing pursuit for salespeople of all ages. When personal rewards can be shared with family members, every experience becomes a step toward better balance. That makes for more close-knit families.
    • Increased Engagement – Americans sincerely want what is best for their families. When they see family members benefiting from their own incentive programs, it makes them feel good. They are more engaged at work as a result. After all, they want to earn those rewards so they can share them with the family.
    • Improved Emotional Wellness – Family members cheering one another on in pursuit of a shared goal find strength and unity in doing so. That can make for better emotional wellness, both at work and at home.

    It is easy to look at channel partner programs as little more than a way to retain good business. Personalized rewards can do just that. But they can do so much more. One of the things we have learned here at Motivation Excellence is that engaging family members makes an incentive program much more effective.

    If you would like to learn how to include family members in your channel partner engagement efforts, reach out to Motivation Excellence right away. We have all sorts of incentives and rewards that fit perfectly with the idea of getting family members involved.

  • How Custom Incentives & Rewards Can Revolutionize Your Employee Engagement

    How Custom Incentives & Rewards Can Revolutionize Your Employee Engagement

    Motivation Excellence specializes in developing and implementing employee rewards and incentive programs. A reward points program is a perfect fit for employees and can encompass recognition and achievements. The best part is that with our personalized rewards solution, the points can be used for almost anything!  In recent years, we’ve noticed a greater focus on custom rewards within our client base. We have several ways to reward your best people in exactly the way they want to be rewarded. There’s no better incentive!

    One Size Doesn’t Fit All

    Being an employer of choice has always had a prominent place in workforce history, but since the pandemic, adding motivational benefits to an employee package is critical. We saw with the Great Resignation and Quiet Quitting, that engagement is key to keeping top talent.  Having a reward and recognition, or incentive program, in play is a great way to increase engagement. The reward structure is paramount to a program’s success. Rewards shouldn’t be a one size fits all solution.  When you offer a personalized reward to an employee the motivation to achieve the goal you want them to meet or exceed grows. If you haven’t started offering your employees the power to choose their own rewards, now is the time to start. The opportunity to earn a family vacation might be a winner for Sue, but Tom really wants to update his game room. With a reward point program through Motivation Excellence, Sue and Tom are both motivated to succeed because they can use their points on exactly what they want. 

    Recognition Is a Big Thing

    Whether you want to run a reward and recognition program to highlight your employees’ milestones or an incentive program to motivate them to reach higher goals, with a well-designed program you’ll find eager participants. People want to be recognized for their accomplishments. They want their employers to notice and give value to  their ideas, efforts, and loyalty. In fact, one survey among American workers revealed that 40% said they would likely put more energy into their work if they were recognized more often.

    Employee recognition improves engagement. According to Gallup, companies with the highest level of employee engagement are 21% more profitable than those with the lowest levels. It comes down to a simple equation: recognition boosts engagement and engagement increases profitability.

    All of this is well and good, but what does it have to do with customizing employee incentive programs? Giving people the ability to choose their reward experience is much more motivating than giving them a pin on their 20th anniversary or a gift card to the company store when they receive a great customer review. When an employee has some say in how they’re recognized, engagement flourishes and an emotional bond is established.

    Applying Customization to Employee Incentives

    There are many avenues to explore when it comes to personalizing employee incentives. Our online award offerings can be customized to include only certain items and categories, or you can keep the full gamut of thousands of options so employees can choose from trending electronics, sporting equipment, airline tickets and so much more! Some of our clients like to offer a select number of lifestyle upgrade packages. Each package is the same value, but focuses on a different theme, like culinary, fitness, travel and home entertainment. Our Concierge Shopping option allows point recipients to use their points nearly any way they can think of, including, vacation home rentals, college tuition for their child, lunch at a French castle…we’ve even purchased a cow at auction for a participant who wanted to give it to his granddaughter for a 4H project! 

    Having a choice in how they’re rewarded  makes employees feel like they are true participants rather than just recipients of whatever reward their employers thought was best. And like everything else in the employment realm, making employees feel like an integral part of the success of your business also encourages them to take ownership of their role in it. 

    Customization works because what might be important to you will not be important to everyone else on your team. Customization avoids the temptation to offer the same incentive to every employee and expect all of them to embrace it with equal enthusiasm.

    Customization Is Where It’s At

    Don’t miss out on retaining top talent because they’re lured to another company with better incentives. Utilizing customization when it comes to retention is a great addition to any benefits package you have. We’d be happy to take a look at what you’re doing in that arena and see if one of our solutions would create more engagement for your team. Contact us today to design your employee engagement and rewards program.